Scientists at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam (Netherlands) have concluded that one in two women and one in three Caucasian men will develop dementia, Parkinson's disease or stroke. However, various preventive measures can reduce the risk of neurological and cardiovascular disease by more than 50 percent. This was announced in a press release on MedicalXpress.
The large-scale study, which was conducted from 1990 to 2016, involved 12 thousand people over 45 years old. Health checks on the volunteers were carried out every four years to check for signs of various diseases. During the study period, 5291 people died, while 3260 of them were not diagnosed with any neurological disorder. 1,489 people were diagnosed with dementia, including Alzheimer's disease (just under 80 percent), 1,285 people had a stroke (65 percent had ischemic), and 263 developed parkinsonism.
Experts have found that patients often had high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes before developing these diseases. Women were at higher risk of developing dementia than men, but the latter were prone to stroke at a younger age.
